Up in the Haymow: Lynne O. Ramer Memories of Mifflin County in the Early 20th C.

My grandfather Lynne O. Ramer wrote hundreds of letters which were published in the Lewistown Sentinel by Ben Meyers in his column We Notice That. Many were filled with memories of his boyhood in Milroy, PA.

Today I am sharing his letter which appeared on September 7, 1968, in the Lewistown Sentinel. He recalls boyhood in the haylofts of barns in the early 20th c.

*****

Lots of Work and Fun-Making When Barns Flourished

Up in the Haymow

Being a Blue Hollow lad back in the days when every farm had its great big and roomy barn, filling it was a lot of hard work. But there was something to compensate for it. There was lots of fun-making too.

Up in the haymow there were also sheaves of wheat, oats, and corn stalks. The mow’s floor consisted of scanty, open-face planks where the food for  the livestock had to be handled with tender care or it would be ruined.

To prevent spontaneous combustion and heatings and excess molds, causing fire to break out and perhaps burn the building to the ground, there had to be proper ventilation.

So the kids had to heap the hays and straws and sheaves in the most intricate manner. After those things began to settle down, the puzzle of getting out of it would have challenged the skill of an escape artist like Houdini. The kids had a job trying to untangle the mess.

It was hard on the kids too on a smootheringly hot day. In the haymows the harried youths dragged and tramped the hays until they actually dropped from sheer fatigue.

Remember, it was 100 degrees and more up there beneath the tin roof. Then the kids sweated, but in the winter time they almost froze up there, chutting the feeds down through the mow hole, down to the ever-hungry horses and cows.

Yet, despite all this, it was like a paradise up there next to the cool tin roof on a rainy day. It was pleasant and relaxing, listening to the pitter-patter of the rain. Or the clank-clank of hail stones in sweet music as they descended on the corrugated galvanized roof.

‘Twas no place to linger on sub-zero days, dragging the food supply to the mow holes. It was fully a 50-foot drop from the top of the mows to the barn floor below.

wnt

Knocked Out Cold

So the muscle-power of the cows and horses had to be called on to help. A one-inch hemp rope around the neck of Old Daisy, Old Bessy or Old Dobbin or Old Mary would pull the pitchfork-holding sheaves up to the top.

The arrangement worked real well. But then one day Mary’s colt whinnied at an unguarded moment. The rope was tightened as Mary tried to go to her baby and it caught the farm boy, who was tossed through the air “with the greatest of ease.”

When he hit bottom he bounced off a heap of limestones. Result: The lad was knocked out cold. It was a long sleep for him before he woke up with the help of old Doc Boyer. Unconscious he was from 2 p.m. to 8 a.m. the next day.  The youngster had the “ride of his life,” nearly the last ride.

When the thunder rumbled and the lightning flashed and the rain and hail pummeled the galvanized roof, nobody had to worry about being up in the haymow. They felt perfectly safe. No electrical charges landed there. There were four lightening rods. Ben Franklin proved a point with his kite.

If a lad got careless when the mows were being filled he might disappear in the hap, falling through an unfloored section of the floor, reappearing again in the stable below—scaring a horse or cow half out of its wits.

wnt

Thresher Comes Around

The time came when Homer Crissman* brought his threshing rig to separate the chaff from the grain. The thresher was set up. And soon the barn floors were littered with dust and chaff and the wheat and oats sheaves did fly.

The cone-capped stack grew bigger and even bigger in height and width. There the livestock could munch later, but meanwhile the chickens followed the sifting chaff and grains away out into the meadows and fields.

Yes, the kids had lots of useful things to fill their lives. Unlike the youths today, they didn’t need thrills such as some do nowadays—pulling over mailboxes, prowling rural lanes, scaring the people by the noise of their motorcycles.

Gone are the days and gone also are many of the old-fashioned barns which furnished to much work and play, not only for kids, but for all the family.

*Samuel Homer Crissman was born in 1858 in Mifflin County, PA. He was a farmer in 1910. In 1930 he ran a saw mill. He passed in 1940 at age 82.

*****

My grandfather lived with his mother and Ramer grandparents in Milroy. Joseph Sylvester Ramer and Rachel Barbara Reed are shown below with their house and an outbuilding behind them. Joseph ran a saw mill.

After the death of Joseph's first wife Anna Kramer he married Rachel Barbara Reed. Their daughter Esther Mae gave birth to Lynne in 1905. When Joseph died, Esther and Lynne continued to live with Rachel.

When Gramps was nine he lost both his mother and his grandmother. His mother's siblings stepped in to care for him. He lived with his aunt Carrie Ramer Bobb and aunt Annie Ramer Smithers.

Carrie Bobb (52 y.o.) and Lynne Ramer (24 yo.)

Annie and Charles Smithers in the 1940s

Charlie Smithers encouraged my grandfather's academic success. Gramps worked his way through college and seminary at Susquehanna University and Columbia Teachers College. Later, he earned his Masters in Mathematics from University of Buffalo.

*****

My husband's maternal grandfather John Oran O'Dell was a farmer with a thresher in Lynn Township, St. Clair Co., MI.

He had a farm in the upper left corner of Lynn Twsp. almost to Brown City. The 'old homestead' had a large barn.

*****

Although my first home was an 1830s farmhouse, we didn't have a barn, just a series of 'sheds' or 'garages'. But across the street was another 1830s farmhouse with a barn. When my dad was a boy, he would help John Kuhn. Below is John with a load of hay, his barn in the background.

Lynne O. Ramer on Stables, Barns, Shantys, and Sheds

Today I am sharing my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer's articles about barns and sheds of his childhood in Milroy, PA in the early 1900s. Gramps sent his articles to Ben Meyer who shared them in his We Notice That column in the Lewistown Sentinel in the 1960s.

Joseph Sylvester Ramer and his second wife Barbara Rachel Reed Ramer were Lynne O. Ramer's grandparents.
The photo shows the Milroy, PA farm he lived on as a child.

*****

Lots of Work and Fun-Making When Barns Flourished

Up in the Haymow
Being a Blue Hollow lad back in the days, when every famer had its great big and roomy barn, filling it was a lot of hard work. But there was something to compensate for it. There was lots of fun-making, too.

Up in the haymow there were also sheaves of wheat, oats, and corn stalks. The mow's floor consisted of scant, open-face planks where the food for the livestock had to be handled with tender care or it would be ruined.

To prevent spontaneous combustion and heatings and excess molds, causing fire to break out and perhaps burn the building to the ground, there had to be proper ventilation.

So the kids had to keep the hays and straws and sheaves in the most intricate manner. After these things began to settle down, the puzzle of getting out of it would have challenged the skill of an escape artist like Houdini. The kids had a job trying to untangle the mess.

It was hard on the kids, too, on a smotheringly hot day. In the haymows the harried youths dragged and tramped the hays until they actually dropped from sheer fatigue.

Remember, it was 108 degrees up there beneath the tin roof. Then the kids sweated, but in the winter time they almost froze up there, chutting the feeds down through the mow hole, down to the ever hungry horses and cows.

Yet, despite all this, it was like a paradise up there next to the cool tin roof on a rainy day. It was pleasant and relaxing, listening to the pitter-patter of the rain. Or the clank-clank of hail stones in sweet music as they descended on the corrugated galvanized roof.

'Twas no place to linger on sub-zero days, dragging the food supply to the mow holes. It was fully a 50-foot drop from the top of the mows to the barn floor below.

Early 1900s, John O'Dell on his farm near Capac, MI

 Knocked Out Cold

So the muscle-power of the cows and horses had to be called on to help. A one-inch hemp rope around the neck of Old Daisy, Old Bessy, or Old Dobbin, or Old Mary would pull the pitchfork holding sheaves up to the top.

Farm horses early 1900s. John O'Dell farm in Brown City, MI

This arrangement worked real well. But then one day Mary's colt whinnied at an unguarded moment. The rope was tightened as Mary tired to go to her baby and it caught the farm boy, who was tossed through the air "with the greatest of ease."

When he hit bottom he bounced off a heap of limestone. Result: The lad was knocked out cold. It was a long sleep for him before he woke up with the help of old Doctor Boyer*. Unconscious he was from 2 pm to 8 am the next day. The youngster had the "ride of his life," nearly the last ride.

When the thunder rumbled and the lightning flashed and the rain and hail pummeled the galvanized roof, nobody had to worry about being up in the haymow. They felt perfectly sage. There were four lightning rods. Ben Franklin proved a point with his kite.

If a lad got careless when the mows were being filled he ight disappear in the heap, falling through an unfloored section of the floor, reappearing again in the stable below--scaring a horse or cow half out of its wits.

Threshing in 1920. John O'Dell farm near Capac, MI

Thresher Comes Around

The time came when Homer Cressman** bought his throwing rig to separate the chaff from the grain. The thresher was set up. And soon the barn floors were littered with dust and chaff and the wheat and oats sheaves did fly.

Hay stack in early 1900s. Photo of the John Kuhn farm in Tonawanda NY

The cone-capped stack grew bigger and even bigger in height and width. There the livestock could munch later, but meanwhile the chickens followed the sifting chaff and grains away out into the meadows and fields.

Yes, the kids had lots of useful things to fill their lives. Unlike the youths today, they didn't need thrills such as some do nowadays--pulling over mail boxes, prowling rural lanes, scaring the people by the noise of their motorcycles.

Gone are the days and gone also are many of the old-fashioned barns which furnished so much work and play, not only for kids, but for all the family.

*****

Barn raising and barn. John O'Dell farm near Capac, MI early 1900s.

Here’s What Goes Into the Barn and What Comes Out

Chicken Thief Surprised

Come, if you will, with us and we’ll take a look at the most important of all the farm buildings next to the farmer’s house. Namely, the barn. Let’s think of what goes on in them, what goes into them, and what comes out of them.

"tilling the soil" around 1920 involved a team of horses.

John O'Dell fam, Capac, MI

Lined up side by side are the various stables, three of them. First on the left come the horse (and colt) stables; next, in the center, come the bulls’ and calves’ stables, and on the right are the milk cow’s stables.

There are entries or runways between the rows, whence the brans, chops, grains, corns, hays fodders are dispensed into the mangers, troughs, racks, etc., from bins and haymows.

Stalls for the animals may be solid walled planks to prevent Old Dobbin from kicking Old Daisy. If there is nothing as substantial as the walls between the livestock, then merely a long chained to the ceiling, is poked though the hay and racks.  The log, swinging freely, gently touches the flanks or rumps of the horses, poking them and reminding them to stay in the middle of their domain.

The story is told of two young scamps who had stealthily come into the horse stables one night, seeking to get some roasting chickens for a dough bake at Potlicker Flat. {Note: Potlicker Flat was a real place!] The horses, let out to munch and sleep in the nearby meadows, had made room for the fowls to come in to roost for the night.

The kids had to work in the dark. One of them accidentally knocked against the log hanging from the ceiling. Like a pendulum, the big heavy log began to swing back and forth, finally sticking against the rump of one kid.

The one who was hit started to run away as fast as he could, yelling, “Charlie! Run! He got me!” He thought it was the framer, Andy Swartzell***, who hit him with a club.  Both of the lads, indeed all actors in the little episode, are now long gone.

Bringing in the hay early 1900s. Photo of John Kuhn on his farm in Tonawanda, NY

A Fall From Mow

Across the entire rear end of these runways we mentioned is a narrower runway for dragging feed to the animals. Across holes to the mows above are made, each one having a ladder to crawl up and down as one wishes.

A fall or jump from the haymow above or the straw mow or fodder mow to the heaped up pile below was a breath-taking thrill or a breath-taking thump, depending on whether it was intended or accidental. Many a farmer’s boy or even the farmer himself or a hired hand has been seriously hurt in one of these falls.

These horse stables and cow stables are cleansed daily (huh, well, maybe every day) but the colts and calves’ stables offal are allowed to accumulate on the floor.  That makes it easier for their shorter legs to reach the mangers and hay-fodder ricks.

Some accumulations remain all winter. Hence the spring cleaning is a task detested by the teen and pre-teen farm lads. When the oldsters aren’t watching some kids curl up in a wheelbarrow and read such smuggled literature as the Alger Books, the American Boy, Youth’s Home Companion, Jesse James, Liberty Boys of ’76. This is done between barrowsful.

Outside in the barnyard, too, are the straw stacks. There the munching, lunching cows and horses chomp away, but only as high as they can reach, say six to eight feet.  As a result the stack assumes a mushroom shape.

Roosters Lose Dignity

On occasions, tunnels are eaten straight through the stack and on rare occasions the pile tumbles over onto the cattle, sending them scampering and snorting.

Under the barn’s overshoot a clay-gravel path, an all-season access from the outside can be made to all stables. Two or three rock-salt boxes are handy. Also the water trough is under the overshot, so the feeders and drinkers can be out of the weather altogether.

In the troughs are horny chubs that tickle the noses of the cattle and tease the Rhode Island Red roosters which mostly fall in when pecking at a surfacing chub.  Lose all their fowlish dignity as they get a through dunking.

This is just a compressed resume of what goes on, into and out of stables in barns.  To which you can add your own imagination.  How about it?

John O'Dell barn near Capac, MI around 1920

*****

Some Farmers Still Have A Shanty House Left

City folks are familiar with the vacation homes, which we recently described.  But there are still left county people having many different houses. They include at each farm the following: the shanty, the barn, the milk shed, the wood shed, the implement shed, the smoke house, the outhouse, and not forgetting the corn crib and granary, also the silo.

Now the shanty is most used of all.  Most of these are attached to the main dwelling, but some stand off by themselves.

So what is it used for?  Well, the shanty is merely a lean-to at rear of the farm house, used as a supplementary kitchen.  Or laundry. 

In a sense the shanty is an air-conditioned annex, to keep the boiling clothing on wash day from steaming up the kitchen, as well as eliminate the heat of canning, preserving, baking, etc. out of the summer kitchen. By air-conditioning we mean it’s cooler there than in the kitchen due to the opened and unscreened windows, during the summer time.

The shanty provides a means of preparing butchering dinners or holiday dinners or when the “city relatives” pile in on the farmer’s family unexpectedly.

In the winter it is not quite as warm as the kitchen, so that grandma, in her woolen shawl, can scrape the hog’s small intestines clean for the sausage-making. And all this without freezing her nimble fingers. 

If you ever tried to preserve jams, vegetables, and pickles all on the same stove, you can readily see how useful is that “extra stove” in the shanty.

We must not overlook the privacy of a shanty for a bath, either in a 12-inch basin or in a full-sized galvanized laundry tub. For both of these versions the bath must be taken in a stand-up position.

And when the soft (lye) soap skids across the floor, have no fear.  he soap can’t hurt the bare, splintery floor. So just gingerly trace the soap and retrieve it.

If you are fortunate enough to have like-minded cousins who want to take a scrubbing, you can exchange the scrub brush. Then both get a good going-over. While standing yet!

There really ain’t time, nor temperature, to play with sail boats or plastic toys else the water may begin to freeze before your toys float to the other side of the make-shift tub. You see, we can spare only one tea kettle full of hot water per person per week.  Rinsing is verboten.

Other functions of the shanty were for milk-seperatin’, butter churnin’, sausage grindin’, mush boilin’.

John O'Dell farm near Capac, MI around 1920

Snowbound in Barn
   
Now that all of these things are done for us, in national establishments, put up cartooned, canned, wrapped and shipped everywhere for immediate consumption, there is really no honest-to-goodness uses for a shanty.  (About as useless as a bath in a 21-day trip to the moon).

It was the custom to make all the different buildings inter-communicating in U or L formation so a person could walk from one end to the other without being exposed to the weather.
   
Why was this so? Because during a heavy snow the drifts might pile up 20 feet deep. Hence it was not a good idea to get snow-bound until the next spring in the barn. One might be marooned there and unable to separate the milk for a long time.

If the farmer and his family weren’t too finicky they could fetch the cows into the kitchen to milk, or the pigs to slop or the Rhode Island Reds to nest.
   
The fashion today is to have two homes or two places to live when the family is so minded where to have them located.  But that kind of life will never be as exciting as in the day when the shanty flourished! 

*****

Sheds: Attached to Every Barn

Our story about the farm shanties naturally leads to another kind of building that always could be found nearby—the sheds. Let’s talk about a typical Blue Hollow shed located in one of the ravines in the east end of Kish Valley [Kishacoquillas Valley, known locally as both Kish Valley and Big Valle]. Here’s how it looked, say about the year 1915:

Like every barn, Blue Hollow’s has attached to it a shed, located at right angles to the higher barn roof. The shed generally becomes “all purpose,” for dozens of functions. In the back end of the shed are stored the harrows, the discer, the hay rakes, the tedder.

And in the forefront of the shed is the milk wagon, a light spring wagon, with no top to shield one from the weather. Then at the outer edge of the shed is a corn crib. Here are stored a few hundreds of bushels of corn.

The bottom and sides of the crib are lined with quarter-inch wire mesh to keep out the rats. But the mice find entrance and enough corn silk to make a dozen cozy nests, lined with chicken feathers and the fleece of sheep. But the mice consumption of corn kernels is not heavy due to the barn cat that keeps their number down.

Outside the crib door is a knotty old chopping block on which you cut corn-on-cobs into a dozen pieces with your trusty hatchet. There the barn fowls of all kinds can peck the kernels off the cob more easily and so the cobs will decompose in the nearby manure heap. Not only chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys gather for the feast, as do also the semi-wild guineas and semi-tame pigeons.

John O'Dell farm near Capac, MI around 1920

Implements Aplenty

To the other side of the shed is an assortment of things including a huge anvil mounted on a block, a few wooden horses to hold up any platform, a hand-operated forge and a boxful of coal.

Ranked against the stable side wall are these implements: Picks, hoes, rakes, grubbing pick, a 16-pound sledge hammer, a two-bitted axe, a crowbar or two, pieces of water pipe, iron stakes, etc.

Hanging of the wall are cross-cut saws, a crossback saw, regular woodsaws; a hacksaw, small hand axes, pip wrenches, monkey open- and closed-end wrenches, collars, hamess, fly netting, harnesses, whiffletrees, etc.---all of which need mending and re-riveting.

Oh, we forgot! There stands a 300-400 pound grindstone. And nearby is a stock of scythes, sickles, a cradle, cutter bars from mowers and reaper-binders, corn cutters, bush hooks---all needing tedious hours of turning and grinding and whetting.

Fastened to the wall are a 20-foot long, two-inch thick plank work benches side-by-side, with a few shelves, and drawers underneath for a grand assortment of boxes, cans, jars. The boxes once contained cut plug chewing tobacco. The cans were once full of paint.

As for the Mason glass jars, they were “stolen” from the missus’ cellar. In the receptacles were nails, screws, washers, cotter keys, nuts, bolts, glazier’s points, all sorts of rivets, hasps, hinges for small doors.

Busiest Spot on Farm

And in the large bins were hoops, hinges, clevises, snaps, open rings, closed rings, horseshoe nails, horseshoes, rasps, chisels, awls, punches.

There were barber-wire cutters, fence wire stretchers, also staples of all sizes. Ranked beyond the work bench were unused rolls of three different heights of fence and chicken fence and barbed wire, rolls of tar paper, and a parcel bundle of cedar shingles. There were shoe lasts for humans.

Over all was the layer of dust, mixed with chaff and chicken, pigeon and swallow offal.

On rainy days this was the busiest spot on the farm. Grinding edges of axes, scythes, cutter bars. This entailed the labor of chiseling off the rivets and installing new rivets, either by the anvil or on a handy length of rail from the Reichley**** Brother’s logging railroad, or from the Naginew***** or Shaeffer’s quarries. Yet, perhaps also from the Pennsy [Pennsylvania] Railroad.

*****

NOTES

* Old Doc Boyer appears on the 1910 census for Old Armgah Township  as  Dr. S. J. Boyer, age 53, with wife Emma E., age 42. On the 1920 Census Samuel J. Boyer is age 63 and lives with his wife Emma and their children Walter, age 13, and Roy, age 11. Samuel J. Boyer died in 1943 and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Milroy, PA. His son Walter Wendell died of Typhoid fever at age 31; he was born Feb 3, 1857 and died in 1918. Walter worked as a telegraph operator for the Pennsylvania Rail Road.

**S. Homer Cressman appears on the Armagh Township census. He was born about 1859 and worked as a store clerk in 1880. He was widowed and a traveling salesman in 1920, living with his son Gilbert, daughter-in-law Minnie, and grandchildren George and Samuel, on Gilbert's farm. In 1930 he owned a saw mill.

*** According to his death certificate, Charles Andrew Swartzell was born Sept. 9, 1863 and died January 11, 1929. His parents were Andrew Szartzell and Mary Ann Aitkins. He married Ann C. Linthrust. His occupation was farmer. His death certificate was signed by Dr. S. J. Boyer.

****According to Lost Railroads, found at http://lostrailroads.com/about/: This railroad was built by Reichley Brothers to connect their operations with [the] tramroad Gotshall had constructed southwest from Poe Paddy, through Panther Hollow and past Dinkey Springs. It must have been built shortly after 1900, after they acquired the Monroe Kulp mill at Milroy and associated railroads and chose to abandon the original Reichley tramroad from Poe Paddy along Poe Creek.

According to a Armagh Township History from http://www.pagenweb.org/~mifflin/twp-history.html: *****Naginey [city] was named for Charles Naginey and is the site of a vast limestone quarry. It was also a station on the Milroy Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The Kuhn Family of Tonawanda NY

The Depression caused my grandfather Alger Gochenour (1904, Woodstock VA to 1955, Tonawanda NY) to lose his job as an insurance salesman. His customers could not pay their premiums. My father Eugene Gochenour told me that his dad felt bad and paid for some customers for a while. In 1935 the bank foreclosed on Al's Tonawanda city bungalow. The family moved into an apartment in an 1830s farmhouse at 1865 Military Road near Ensminger Rd in Tonawanda.

Across the street was a working farm occupied by John Kuhn and family. The families became close friends and neighbors, so much so that my Aunt Alice Gochenour Ennis was named the executor of the estate when the last Kuhn family member passed in 2004.

The Kuhn homestead on Military Rd, Tonawanda NY 

The Kuhn farm

John Kuhn bringing in the hay

John Kuhn with son Richard. My Gochernour family home in the background.

The Kuhn barn

John Kuhn in his tractor

John and Richard Kuhn

John's German grandfather Henry Kuhn, born November 24, 1824 in Wissembourg, Alsace, France, immigrated to America in 1852. Several months after arriving he married Salomea Schear, another German from Alsace Lorraine. They had ten children before Henry's death in 1898 at age 73.

Henry's son Henry was born November 10, 1853. In 1878 he married Katharina Pierson, whose family were also original area settlers. They had twelve children before Henry's death in 1938 at age 83.

Henry and Katharina had son John Henry, born September 13, 1882. John married Julia Ensminger whose family was one of the earliest settlers. They had one son Richard and one daughter Lucille before Julia died in 1927. John Henry raised his children with the aid of Julia's unmarried sister Alma Ensminger. John died March 9, 1972.

Julia Ensminger

Wedding of John Kuhn and Julia Ensminger

Julia Ensminger Kuhn

John, Alma, and Lucille were familiar family friends when I was growing up.

In 1964 I took this photo with my Brownie camera: Alma Ensminger, John Kuhn,

my grandmother Emma Becker Gochenour, my mother Joyce Ramer Gochenour, and Lucille Kuhn.

John Kuhn holding Alice Gochenour, Alma Ensminger, Alger Gochenour with neighbor girl (Audry Morrow), Lucille Kuhn. About 1937.

Dad said the Kuhn house he remembered from the 1930s and the house I knew in the 1960s was unchanged in most ways. John did install a gas stove in place of the wood-burning one, and also indoor plumbing for a bathroom. But the furnishings, wallpaper, and rugs all dated to the turn of the century. There was an oak library table with plants; cushioned wicker furniture; a chiming clock; floral wallpaper and floral rugs; an upright piano I used to tinkle around on; a front parlor used for funerals that I was forbidden to enter.

The biggest change Dad saw was the selling off of the farmland. Dad grew up driving the tractor for John. And also stealing corn, then roasting it and inviting the Kuhns over to enjoy their own corn! In the early 1950s the Kuhn farmland was turned into postwar housing. In the late 1960s John sold the barn, first to a Rubinstein who wanted to have a theater there. Neighbors objected so the barn was dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere. And after her father's death,  Lucille raised money by selling land around the old farmhouse.

Richard Kuhn was born in 1916. My aunt has a photo of his father showing him the family farm and you can see the pride in John's eyes. All this will be yours, he seems to be saying, this farm which your forefathers built. But after Richard's WWII service he settled in California. John must have been heartbroken. Richard died in 1970 in San Diego, CA.

John Kuhn with son Richard

John's daughter Lucille never married. She was expected to take care of her father's home. When I knew Alma and Lucille they dressed in 1930s fashions. Alma (1900-1995) had long hair under a net, thick flesh colored stockings and sturdy tied shoes, and wore flowered dresses that were below the knee. Much like how my great-grandmother Greenwood dressed. After her father's death Lucille wore slacks.

Alma Ensminger in the 1970s

Lucille Kuhn in the 1970s

Lucille Kuhn was like a big sister to my Aunt Alice

Lucille Kuhn with her brother Richard

Lucille Kuhn in the 1940s

Lucille Kuhn in the 1970s

The Kuhn, Pierson, Shear, and Ensminger families were part of a migration of Germans seeking a better life. Beginning in 1830 German families left Alsace-Lorraine to settle in New York's Mohawk Valley. The 1825 completion of the Erie Canal, ending in Tonawanda, brought settlers westward. In 1836 the township of Tonawanda was established, named for a local Native American tribe. The Military Road settlers built St Peter's German Evangelical church in 1849. The church now houses the historical society.

Gruesome Recollection from a Hundred Years Ago: Hog Butchering

I was always fascinated by my grandfather's article remembering hog butchering on his aunt and uncle's farm. Being a child of the 1950s suburbs and the wide aisles of modern grocery stores, it was hard for me to believe that a little boy was witness to such a bloody and gruesome scene, none the less participating in the event. It makes me glad I am a vegetarian!

Lynne at Six Years

In 1960 my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer (1903-1971) wrote a series of articles for the Lewistown Sentinel, the local paper for his hometown of Milroy, PA. Gramps wrote close to 200 articles that were published in the Sentinel and other newspapers, many recounting tales of farm life in the early 20th c.
 
Gramps was orphaned before he was nine. After the death of his grandmother "Nammie" (Rachel Barbara Reed Ramer, second wife of Joseph Sylvester Ramer) he lived with his Uncle Charles and Aunt Annie Ramer Smithers or Uncle Ed and Aunt Carrie Ramer Bobb.


Lynne with his cousin

Gramps was very smart and in the 1920s went to Susquehanna University and was ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran church.  He took teacher's training at Columbia University along with his friend and fellow Susquehanna U alumni Roger Blough who would go on to become president of U.S. Steel company.

Gramps taught at Hartwick Seminary in New York State where he met my grandmother, and they moved to Kane, PA where he taught in the high school. My mom was born there.


Lynne in 1952 at work

During WWII Gramps was an engineer in the Chevrolet aviation factory in Tonawanda, NY  and in his 'spare time' earned his Masters in Mathematics from the University of Buffalo. At this time he was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal church.

Around 1960 he moved to Michigan and taught Calculus and Trig at Lawrence Technological University while still working for Chevy.

He became very interested in research conducted by Lamont Geological Survey by Ewing and Donn and obtained a grant from Blough's steel company for their research.

But he never forgot those early days. So here is the story Gramps wrote on hog butchering:

*************
Getting Early Start

Before dawn cracked or even came close to cracking, all hands were on deck. Regular chores were down in double time—milking, feeding, watering, separating.

Breakfast was bolted down in a whistle. Pig sty was given last cleaning out and washing, while the roused porkers eyed the activity with deep resentment and suspicion. “What! No feed today!”

Then the farm boy started pumping water, carried it in pails, filled three, four copper and or cast iron kettles and filled dozens of milk cans besides.

Kindling was doused with kerosene and fires were lighted and soon crackling and burning. Showers of sparks ascended in the dark or maybe as rosy-tinted dawn spread her first fingers—and the frosty air was set in circulation by the sudden invasion of thermal currents.

Wind barriers were readjusted to give maximum vertical output. Soon the water began to simmer and it was a full time job keeping the fires roaring. The stored woodpiles began to diminish in height and more was scoutched [sic] up, just to play safe.

From many directions the butchering helpers began to arrive, in buggies and in spring wagons. Neighbors and relatives, some from the cities. Merry greetings were passed. Then the forces moved on to their places of occupation: Women folks to the kitchen and shanties to prepare foods for the dinner, and the pots, pans and crocks for the puddin’ meat and the ponhos, while the men took their assignments from Uncle Ed, the boss butcher.

Shootin’ and Sitckin’

The men descended on the pigsty, armed with rifle and deer knife for sticking, while the young ones were told to stay back and keep the fires going. “You’re too little to watch shootin’ and stickin’.”

Soon you’d hear the crack of a rifle and maybe dead silence, but more likely an unearthly squealing. Perhaps the sty door would be opened and the dead pig dragged out. or maybe he’d come out “standing,” gushing blood from the severed jugular.

Maybe he’d drop dead all of a sudden, but like as not he’d take off up through the apple orchard with two, three hands in a merry chase. No one liked that, for it may mean a hundred yards dragging the carcass to the scalding barrel. Unusual work was undesired—usual work was sufficient.

“Get the water in the barrel!” All hands rushed to do so. It had to be real scalding hot to make bristle removal easy, yet not too scalding as to start the porker to cookin’.

“Refill the kettles!” And you’d do so, from the reserved milk cans. Or, run like blazes to the pump to get more in a hurry.

“More wood on the fire!” And hands and feet were really flying!

Into the barrel they shoved the head end of the now extinct porker, and sloshed him around. Water slopping on the ground melted the frost.

Testing the Bristles

“Pull him out, boys, and upend him!” Then they dipped the tail end. It was time for Uncle Ed to test the bristles. If they came out easily the “dip” was successful. If not, more scalding water was added until the bristles did come off just right.

“Up and over!” And so Pig No. 1 was ready for scrapping. Meanwhile the killers and stickers had another pig en route to the scalder—never a dull moment. Snout hooks and tendon hooks were used to handle the slippery porker, from scalder to scrapping table.

Then in a few moments scrapping knives began to clean off the bristles until the pig’s carcass was white and pink and gleaming, that is, from the ears backward.

“Okay, boys, on the head and at the feet.” These were choice areas reserved for the younger boys and grandfathers.

It was really an art to scrape the stiff, shorter bristles from the wrinkles around the pig’s snout and beady eyes, and from the deep wrinkles of his fat jowls and under his chin. Also from the creases of his stubby feet.

And these just had to be clean, for from them came the ponhos ingredients and choice pickled tidbits and for the souse. (Barbers could do better with Uncle Ed’s stubble, since his pink cheeks were at least a bit flexible.)

Heave Ho! Up You Go!

Within a few minutes all carcasses were promptly stretched out, inverted, on the ground, and leg tendons were freed for insertion of the tree hooks. With these inserted securely, there came the order, “Heave ho! And up you go!”

In a trice the pigs were swinging, pendulum-like, from the tripods. A deft slash of the knife in the belly area and the large intestines were removed and carted away in the wheelbarrow to the barnyard.

Soon every fowl and every bird, pigeon, swallow and sparrow on the farm was picking away at the odorous mess, as you hastened back for the next load.

Then the carcasses were washed thoroughly with pails of lukewarm water. Viscera and vital organs were deftly severed and removed, being placed in proper containers for further cleansing, trimming and cutting before cooking as ingredients for the choice dishes that grace the farm breakfast tables.

Specialists At Work

Then the head butcher, man of steady hand and keen eyes and of long experience, takes a double-bitted axe, previously sharpened by the farm boy, and deftly splits the disemboweled carcasses down both sides of the pig’s backbone.

Like all Gaul, the pig swings into three parts, whence now the sub-butchers each takes his parts to the trimming tables and proceeds to exercise his private specialty. One, the ham trimmer; one the flitch trimmer and rib-stripper; and one the shoulder man.

Each of the sides quickly becomes three parts, and each of these parts begins to assume familiar shapes and contours. Off come the feet, out come the ribs. The flitch, ham and shoulder get their artistic shapes under the practiced hands of masters, as each steps back to view the details of chiseling, shipping and trimming.

“More wood on the fires! More water in the kettles! Get out the lard cans and trimming cans from the stockpile. Come on there, boy, get moving!” Never a dull moment.

The division of labor now assumes new proportions. There are soft under-belly slabs of leaf lard—slippery as an eel and just as hard to hold and chop into squares. Stingy membranes to remove and cut through—of course that’s the boy’s job.

Then the nice firm fatty places must also be chipped. And the vital organs trimmed and cleansed. The meat scraps and firm suet-like pieces are sorted out for the sausage meat. Small intestines are drained and washed and taken into the shanty for “Nammie” to scrape, turn, scrape again and turn, wash scrape again—until every loose membrane is removed. Then these casings for the sausage are ready for the stuffing.

No barber with straight razor could ever approach the skill of the “Nammies” in intestine-scraping. They come out clean and clear as finest plastic, with nary a cut or even a pinhole, in yards of yards of the product.

Merrily the work went on. The play and the exchange of jokes saved for the occasion flew fast. Plans for the winter’s programs (even church suppers) all went hand-in-hand with the trimming and chipping and cutting.

“Nammie’s” Pigtails

Pig tails were traded from kinder to gown-up, but inevitably one or more found its way to “Nammie’s” skirt, as if she didn’t know it was affixed there while she wagged and wiggled for purposeful entertainment!

Meanwhile in the kitchen the air was blue and white with gossip and filled with savory odors of roasting stuffed chickens, beans and beets and cabbages and carrots and potatoes boiled. All simmered tantalizingly on every lid of the cast iron cooking ranges—one in the kitchen, another in the shanty.

Hands and tongues flew with abandon and soon the table was bent and buckled from the mounds of mashed spuds, bowls of giblet gravy and vegetable dishes, as well as celery and cabbage salad and cole slaw and pickles and eggs devilled in red beet juice and piccadilli and stuffed pickled peppers and spiced crabapples.

“Dinner is ready!” In flock the “hands” to the pump and basin—of nice cold water. Hands and faces find dry spots and places on the harsh linen roller towels. Out of the ovens come the roast chickens, the escalloped oysters, the baked squash and divers other items.

Grace is said and from there on you can use your imagination, since this is a butcherin’ dinner. Peach, pear, plum, cherry and apple pies with a variety of cakes are all standing by on every available shelf and table.

The little farm girls wait hand and foot on the men at the tables, sometimes giving some peculiar and special attention to certain farm boys of their choosing.

Meanwhile the cooks sit in the rockers and exchange quips and stories with the men and with one another. After the men are gone back to the butcherin’, they and the girls will eat at the second table.

Yards of Sausage

“Okay men, let’s go!” And out they troop, to wind up the work. “Fresh wood on the fires. Say, tame down those lard-kettle fires or you’ll burn the lard.” The lard stirrers begin to supervise the stirring and the fire-stoking so as to maintain just the correct heat for the simmering and rendering.

The puddin’ meat and ponhos cookers test the degree of doneness of the livers, hearts, tongues, kidneys, meat strips and head meat and the pig’s feet. “Boy! Taste that liver! Is it done enough to suit you?” And it usually is, but seems to require a good-sized chunk just to make sure.

Meanwhile as the chunk of liver cools, you are busy grinding the sausage meat, while “Pappy” salts and flavors and samples. Then he takes a tubful and starts the stuffing, stripping yards on the spot, yards and yards of smaller intestines. The press is turned and out flows the sausage.

“Nammie stands by and as the sausage emerges she kneads and squeezes and coils the product into another waiting tub. “Watch where you’re spitting tobacco juice, you old buzzard! We don’t want none in our stuffed sausage!”

Ponhos and Lard

Then the pig’s feet are extracted from the ponhos kettle and the chunks of vital organs are ground in the sausage grinder. The mess is stirred back into another waiting kettle. “Nammie” adds the spices and corn meal in just the right proportions—“a little of this and a little of that.” She keeps sampling the ponhos with over-sized wooden spoons just to be sure.

“Sausage stuffing all finished! Bring on the lard! Careful now!  Don’t get scalded.” And the dippers and pails full of nicely toasted and rendered lard chunks go splashing into the sausage grinder, which this time has a large-holed inner liner to capture the lard chunks.

Press and squeeze till every bit of precious amber-fluid is out of the crispy brown pieces and gathered into the waiting lard cans. Then the pressed cakes are removed and stacked for the chickens to feed on this winter. (But are sampled quite extensively when cool enough!)

The brimful lard cans are allowed to cool a bit, then lids are placed on firmly. Then the ponhos, thoroughly cooked and just the right color, is poured into crocks and pans and a small quantity of lard poured on to seal the batch from the air. Each helper and neighbor, as well as city visitor, had bought his own pan for a helpin’.

Come Again Next Year

The chilled hams, shoulders, backbone chunks, flitches, et alia, are carried into the proper storage facility where further treatment such as pickling, smoking and preserving will occupy odd moments for following days and hours.

Clean up, wash up pails and pans and knives. Wipe up and scrape the tables and the cutting boards. Sweep up the bristles to dry and later be burned far away from dainty noses.

Douse the fires, clean the kettles. Store the hooks and the hangers and empty and wash out the scalding troughs and barrels.

“Okay now, boys! Let’s have a snifter of dandelion wine! And thanks a million. Be sure to stay for supper and also come again next year!” The helpers and neighbors thin out, to go home and do their own regular chores: feeding, watering, milking, separating.

The embers die down. The woodpile had disappeared. All is quiet. The butcherin’ has ended.

Lynne

*****

The articles appeared in Ben Meyer's column "We Notice That". Ben responded in the paper with this follow-up:

Dear Lynne:

Congratulations! That was a bang-up job of remembering the many varied details of a family butcherin’ such as was so common place hereabouts a generation or so back.

Our old-time readers, and doubtless many of the younger fry, will take keen delight in reading and re-reading your story of  Uncle Ed and Aunt Carrie’s farm in Armagh Township.

Some of the old guard family butchers still do business at the old stand. But their number dwindles as time goes on. You may be sure their products are in great demand. People’s mouths drool just at the very thought of being presented with a mixture consisting of a ring of sausage in skins, a pan of ponhos (the main ingredients) and some side dishes like a generous slab of puddin’ meat, souse, et cetera.

Back in the old days we used to call such a present a “metzelsoup” down in Dauphin County where we came from. All the hands that so willingly pitched in and worked so hard found that such a hand-put as they departed for their homes that evening well repaid them for all the time and labor expended. Fortunate indeed were outsiders, such as neighbors who hadn’t participated, if they were remembered when one of the farm boys brought a metzelsoup to the door and said, “Here’s a present form pop ‘n mom!”

Certain of the old line butchers have parleyed the family butcherin’ into Big Business. They are the ones who supply home-made pork products in quantity, at wholesale rates to the local markets, including and especially the super-markets.

The Modern Version

Maybe some day while helping yourself at the magnificent display of packaged meats in the counter at the super-duper, you’ll see employees walking past with huge quantities of ponhos, sausage, puddin’ meat. They are being unloaded from a farm truck that’s backed up to the delivery door outside.

People around here still keenly relish the old-time flavor of home-made butchered goods so they demand it rather than to have the stuff shipped in from some packing house where they wouldn’t have the knack of making the stuff right anyhow.

Seems there’s one item in particular you can’t buy in most local retail stores and that is home-made souse. Only souse obtainable is some coarse, tough kind, very much commercialized and nothing like the real thing. Doesn’t taste any more like the real thing than shoe leather compared with a gold brown buckwheat cake!

Correction: Certain neighborhood stores still carry the home-made kind. Some of the local butchers operate little factories in their back yards. They can supply you with the real wiggly jiggly souse including plenty of pork and not bits of rind and bone and pig skin.

Yes, all of the things you mention are to be obtained too at Farmer’s Market where the vendors still include a small handful of Amish farmers. Thanks again, Lynne, for your masterpiece! Oh, yes you employed all the technical terminology of an old-time butchering, or almost all, but one work was missing—“cracklin’s!”

**************

Lynne Oliver Ramer's retirement announcement was not the end of his work life, as he continued teaching at LIT.

Chevrolet Engineering Retirement Announcement, July 23, 1965

This is to announce the forthcoming retirement of Lynne O. Ramer in the Design Analysis activity [electronics computers], which becomes effective September 1, 1965, ending an association of more than thirteen years of service with the Chevrolet Engineering organization.

Following his graduation from high school at Milroy, PA, Lynne attended Susquehanna University where he received a degree in Liberal Arts. Lynne later received a Masters degree in Math from the University of Buffalo. He also received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Susquehanna University Theological Seminary and began teaching at Hartwick Academy. He was ordained a Lutheran minister in 1926.

Lynne started in the public school teaching profession as a teacher of history and math at Kane High School in Kane, PA 1920-30. From June 1942 to January 1946 Lynne was employed at the Chevrolet Aviation Engine Plant in Tonawanda, NY as an Engine Test Operator. He then returned to school teaching at the University of Buffalo and West Seneca High School. In January 1952, Lynne transferred to the Chevrolet Aviation Engine Plant as an Experimental Engineer. He was transferred to the Holbrook Test Laboratory in November 1953. In March 1955, Lynne was promoted to Senior Project Engineer. in January 1961, he became a Senior mathematician programmer, and in October 1962 was reassigned as a Senior Analyst, the position from which he will be retiring.

Lynne has also been a part time teacher since 1942. He has taught various night school, including University of Buffalo, Wayne State, and Lawrence Tech. He has also been very active in the church since June 1950 when he was ordained a perpetual deacon.

His future plans include teaching at Lawrence Tech and continuation as a Deacon in the church.